THE TERRITORIES BECOME SLAVE SOIL
%384. Franklin Pierce, Fourteenth President.%--Although the struggle
with slavery was thus growing more and more serious, the two great
parties pretended to consider the question as finally settled. In 1852
the Democrats nominated Franklin Pierce and William E. King, and
declared in their platform that they would "abide by and adhere to" the
Compromise of 1850, and would "resist all attempts at renewing, in
Congress or out of it, the agitation of the slavery question." The Whigs
nominated General Winfield Scott, and declared that they approved the
fugitive-slave law, and accepted the compromise measures of 1850 as "a
settlement in principle" of the slavery question, and would do all they
could to prevent any further discussion of it.
[Illustration: Franklin Pierce]
So far as the Whigs were concerned, the question was settled; for the
Northern people, angry at their acceptance of the Compromise of 1850 and
the fugitive-slave law, refused to vote for Scott, and Pierce was
elected.[1]
[Footnote 1: Pierce carried every state except Massachusetts, Vermont,
Tennessee, and Kentucky.]
The Free-soilers had nominated John P. Hale and George W. Julian.
%385. The Nebraska Bill.%--Pierce was inaugurated March 4, 1853. He,
too, believed that all questions relating to slavery were settled. But
he had not been many months in office when the old quarrel was raging as
bitterly as ever. In 1853 all that part of our country which lies
between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, the south boundary
of Kansas and 49°, was wilderness, known as the Platte country, and was
without any kind of territorial government. In January, 1854, a bill to
organize this great piece of country and call it the territory of
Nebraska was reported to the Senate by the Committee on Territories, of
which Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois was chairman. Every foot of it was
north of 36° 30', and according to the Missouri Compromise was free
soil. But the bill provided for popular sovereignty; that is, for the
right of the people of Nebraska, when they made a state, to have it free
or slave, as they pleased.
%386. The Kansas-Nebraska Law.%--An attempt was at once made to
prevent this. But Douglas recalled his bill and brought in another,
providing for two territories, one to be called Kansas[1] and the other
Nebraska, expressly repealing the Missouri Compromise,[2] and opening
the country north of 36° 30' to slavery.[3] The Free-soilers, led on by
Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, Seward of New York, and Charles Sumner of
Massachusetts, did all they could to defeat the bill; but it passed, and
Pierce signed it and made it law.[4]
[Footnote 1: The northern and southern boundaries of Kansas were those
of the present state, but it extended westward to the Rocky Mountains.]
[Footnote 2: It declared that the slavery restriction of the Missouri
Compromise "was suspended by the principles of the legislation of 1850,
commonly called the compromise measures, and is hereby declared
inoperative."]
[Footnote 3: The "true intent and meaning" of this act, said the law,
is, "not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to
exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to
form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject
only to the Constitution of the United States." Read Rhodes's _History
of the United States_, Vol. I., pp. 425-490.]
[Footnote 4: May 30, 1854.]
%387. The Struggle for Kansas.%--Thus was it ordained that Kansas and
Nebraska, once expressly set apart as free soil, should become free or
slave states according as they were settled while territories by
antislavery or proslavery men. And now began a seven years' struggle for
Kansas. "Come on, then," said Seward of New York in a speech against
the Kansas Bill; "Come on, then, gentlemen of the slave states. Since
there is no escaping your challenge, I accept it on behalf of freedom.
We will engage in competition for the virgin soil of Kansas, and God
give the victory to the side that is stronger in numbers as it is in
the right."
[Illustration: %THE UNITED STATES in 1851 SEVENTY FIVE YEARS AFTER
INDEPENDENCE Showing Railroads and Overland Routes]
This described the situation exactly. The free-state men of the North
and the slave-state men of the South were to rush into Kansas and
struggle for its possession. The moment the law opening Kansas for
settlement was known in Missouri, numbers of men crossed the Missouri
River, entered the territory, held squatters' meetings,[1] drove a few
stakes into the ground to represent "squatter claims," went home, and
called on the people of the South to hurry into Kansas. Many did so, and
began to erect tents and huts on the Missouri River at a place which
they called Atchison.[2]
[Footnote 1: At one of their meetings it was resolved: "That we will
afford protection to no abolitionist as a settler of this country."
"That we recognize the institution of slavery as already existing in
this territory, and advise stockholders to introduce their property as
early as possible."]
[Footnote 2: Called after Senator Atchison of Missouri.]
But the men of the North had not been idle, and in July a band of
free-state men, sent on by the New England Emigrant Aid Society,[1]
entered Kansas and founded a town on the Kansas River some miles to the
south and west of Atchison. Other emigrants came in a few weeks later,
and their collection of tents received the name of Lawrence.[2]
[Footnote 1: The New England Emigrant Aid Society was founded in 1854 by
Hon. Eli Thayer of Worcester, Mass., in order "to plant a free state in
Kansas," by aiding antislavery men to go out there and settle.]
[Footnote 2: After Amos A. Lawrence, secretary of the Aid Society. It
was a city of tents. Not a building existed. Later came the log cabin,
which was a poor affair, as timber was scarce. The sod hut now so common
in the Northwest was not thought of. In the early days the "hay tent"
was the usual house, and was made by setting up two rows of poles, then
bringing their tops together, thatching the roof and sides with hay. The
two gable ends (in which were the windows and doors) were of sod.]
What was thus taking place at Lawrence happened elsewhere, so that by
October, 1854, that part of Kansas along the Missouri River was held by
the slave-state men, and the part south of the Kansas River by the
free-state men.[1]
[Footnote 1: The proslavery towns were Atchison, Leavenworth, Lecompton,
Kickapoo. The antislavery towns were Lawrence, Topeka, Manhattan,
Waubunsee, Hampden, Ossawatomie.]
In November of the same year the struggle began. There was to be an
election of a territorial delegate[1] to represent Kansas in Congress,
and a day or two before the time set for it the Missourians came over
the border in armed bands, took possession of the polls, voted
illegally, and elected a proslavery delegate.
[Footnote 1: Each territory is allowed to send a delegate to the House
of Representatives, where he can speak, but not vote.]
%388. Kansas a Slave Territory.%--The election of members of the
territorial legislature took place in March, 1855, and for this the
Missourians made great preparations. On the principle of popular
sovereignty the people of Kansas were to decide whether the territory
should be slave or free. Should the majority of the legislature consist
of free-state men, then Kansas would be a free territory. Should a
majority of proslavery men be chosen, then Kansas was doomed to have
slavery fastened on her, and this the Missourians determined should be
done. For weeks before the election, therefore, the border counties of
Missouri were all astir. Meetings were held, and secret societies,
called Blue Lodges, were formed, the members of which were pledged to
enter Kansas on the day of election, take possession of the polls, and
elect a proslavery legislature. The plan was strictly carried out, and
as election day drew near, the Missourians, fully armed, entered Kansas
in companies, squads, and parties, like an invading army, voted, and
then went home to Missouri. Every member of the legislature save one was
a proslavery man, and when that body met, all the slave laws of Missouri
were adopted and slavery was formally established in Kansas.
%389. The Topeka Free-State Constitution.%--The free-state men
repudiated the bogus legislature, held a convention at Topeka, made a
free-state constitution, and submitted it to the popular vote. The
people having ratified it (of course no proslavery men voted), a
governor and legislature were chosen. When the legislature met, senators
were elected and Congress was asked to admit Kansas into the Union as
a state.
%390. Personal Liberty Laws; the Underground Railroad.%--The feeling
of the people of the free states toward slavery can be seen from many
signs. The example set by Vermont in 1850 was followed in 1854 by Rhode
Island, Connecticut, and Michigan, and in 1855 by Maine and
Massachusetts, in each of which were passed "Personal Liberty laws,"
designed to prevent free negroes from being carried into slavery on the
claim that they were fugitive slaves. Certain state officers were
required to act as counsel for any one arrested as a fugitive, and to
see that he had a fair trial by jury. To seize a free negro with intent
to reduce him to slavery was made a crime.
Another sign of the times was the sympathy manifested for the operations
of what was called the Underground Railroad. It was, of course, not a
railroad at all, but an organization by which slaves escaping from their
masters were aided in getting across the free states to Canada.
%391. Breaking up of Old Parties.%--Thus matters stood when, in 1856,
the time came to elect a President, and found the old parties badly
disorganized. The political events of four years had produced great
changes. The death of Clay[1] and Webster[2] deprived the Whigs of their
oldest and greatest leaders. The earnest support that party gave to the
Compromise of 1850 and the execution of the fugitive-slave law estranged
thousands of voters in the free states. The Kansas-Nebraska Bill,
opposed as it was by every Northern Whig, completed the ruin and left
the party a wreck.
[Footnote 1: June 29, 1852.]
[Footnote 2: October 24, 1852.]
But the Democrats had also suffered because of the Kansas-Nebraska law
and the repeal of the Compromise of 1820. No anti-extension-of-slavery
Democrat could longer support the old party. Thousands had therefore
broken away, and, acting with the dissatisfied Whigs, formed an
unorganized opposition known as "Anti-Nebraska men."
%392. The Movement against Immigrants.%--Many old Whigs, however,
could not bring themselves to vote with Democrats. These joined the
American or Know-nothing party. From the close of the Revolution there
had never been a year when a greater or less number of foreigners did
not come to our shores. After 1820 the numbers who came each twelvemonth
grew larger and larger, till they reached 30,000 in 1830, and 60,000 in
1836, while in the decade 1830-1840 more than 500,000 immigrants landed
at New York city alone.
As the newcomers hurried westward into the cities of the Mississippi
valley, the native population was startled by the appearance of men who
often could not speak our language. In Cincinnati in 1840 one half the
voters were of foreign birth. The cry was now raised that our
institutions, our liberties, our system of government, were at the mercy
of men from the monarchical countries of Europe. A demand was made for a
change in the naturalization law, so that no foreigner could become a
citizen till he had lived here twenty-one years.
%393. The American Republicans or Native Americans.%--Neither the
Whigs nor the Democrats would endorse this demand, so the people of
Louisiana in 1841 called a state convention and founded the American
Republican, or, as it was soon called, the Native American party. Its
principles were
1. Put none but native Americans in office.
2. Require a residence of twenty-one years in this country before
naturalization.
3. Keep the Bible in the schools.
4. Protect from abuse the proceedings necessary to get naturalization
papers.
As the members would not tell what the secrets of this party were, and
very often would not say whom they were going to vote for, and when
questioned would answer "I don't know," it got the name of
"Know-nothing" party.[1]
[Footnote 1: Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. II., pp.
51-58; McMaster's _With the Fathers_, pp. 87-106.]
For a time the party flourished greatly and secured six members of the
House of Representatives, then it declined in power; but the immense
increase in immigration between 1846 and 1850 again revived it, and.
somewhere in New York city in 1852 a secret, oath-bound organization,
with signs, grips, and passwords, was founded, and spread with such
rapidity that in 1854 it carried the elections in Massachusetts, New
York, and Delaware. Next year (1855) it elected the governors and
legislatures of eight states, and nearly carried six more. Encouraged by
these successes, the leaders determined to enter the campaign of 1856,
and called a party convention which nominated Millard Fillmore and
Andrew Jackson Donelson. Delegates from seven states left the convention
because it would not stand by the Missouri Compromise, and taking the
name North Americans nominated N. P. Banks. He would not accept, and the
bolters then joined the Republicans.
%394. Beginning of the Republican Party.%--As early as 1854, when the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill was before Congress, the question was widely
discussed all over the North and West, whether the time had not come to
form a new party out of the wreck of the old. With this in view a
meeting of citizens of all parties was held at Ripon, Wisconsin, at
which the formation of a new party on the slavery issue was recommended,
and the name Republican suggested. This was before the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill.
After its passage a thousand citizens of Michigan signed a call for a
state mass meeting at Jackson, where a state party was formed, named
Republican, and a state ticket nominated, on which were Free-soilers,
Whigs, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Similar "fusion tickets" were
adopted in Wisconsin and Vermont, where the name Republican was used,
and in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Connecticut.
The success of the new party in Wisconsin and Michigan in 1854, and its
yet greater success in 1855, led the chairmen of the Republican state
committees of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Wisconsin
to issue a call for an informal convention at Pittsburg on February 22,
1856. At this meeting the National Republican party was formed, and from
it went a call for a national nominating convention to meet (June 17,
1856) at Philadelphia, where John C. Frémont and William L. Dayton were
nominated.
The Free-soilers had joined the Republicans and so disappeared from
politics as a party.
The Whigs, or "Silver Grays," met and endorsed Fillmore.
The Democrats nominated James Buchanan and John C. Breckinridge and
carried the election. The Whigs and the Know-nothings then disappeared
from national politics.
[Illustration: James Buchanan]
%395. James Buchanan, Fifteenth President; the "Bred Scott
Decision."%--When Buchanan and Breckinridge were inaugurated, March
4, 1857, certain matters regarding slavery were considered as legally
settled forever, as follows:
1. Foreign slave trade forbidden.
2. Slave trade between the states allowed.
3. Fugitive slaves to be returned.
4. Whether a state should permit or abolish slavery to be determined by
the state.
5. Squatter sovereignty to be allowed in Kansas and Nebraska, Utah and
New Mexico territories.
6. The people in a territory to determine whether they would have a
slave or a free state when they made a state constitution.
Now there were certain questions regarding slavery which were not
settled, and one of them was this: If a slave is taken by his master to
a free state and lives there for a while, does he become free?
To this the Supreme Court gave the answer two days after Buchanan was
inaugurated. A slave by the name of Dred Scott had been taken by his
master from the slave state of Missouri to the free state of Illinois,
and then to the free soil of Minnesota, and then back to the state of
Missouri, where Scott sued for his freedom, on the ground that his
residence on free soil had made him a free man. Two questions of vast
importance were thus raised:
1. Could a negro whose ancestors had been sold as slaves become a
citizen of one of the states in the Union? For unless Dred Scott was a
citizen of Missouri, where he then lived, he could not sue in the United
States court.
2. Did Congress have power to enact the Missouri Compromise? For if it
did not then the restriction of slavery north of 36°30' was illegal, and
Dred Scott's residence in Minnesota did not make him free.
From the lower courts the case came on appeal to the Supreme Court,
which decided
1. That Dred Scott was not a citizen, and therefore could not sue in the
United States courts. His residence in Minnesota had not made him free.
2. That Congress could not shut slave property out of the territories
any more than it could shut out a horse or a cow.
3. That the piece of legislation known as the Missouri Compromise of
1820 was null and void. This confirmed all that had been gained for
slavery by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and opened to slavery Oregon
and Washington, which were free territories.
%396. Effect of the Dred Scott Decision.%--Hundreds of thousands of
copies of this famous decision were printed at once and scattered
broadcast over the country as campaign documents. The effect was to fill
the Southern people with delight and make them more reckless than ever,
to split the Democratic party in the North; to increase the number of
Republicans in the North, and make them more determined than ever to
stop the spread of slavery into the territories.
[Illustration: %EXPANSION OF SLAVE SOIL IN THE UNITED STATES
1790-1860%]
%397. Struggle for Freedom in Kansas.%--We left Kansas in 1856 with a
proslavery governor and legislature in actual possession, and a
free-state governor, legislature, and senators seeking recognition at
Washington. In 1857 there were so many free-state men in Kansas that
they elected an antislavery legislature. But just before the proslavery
men went out of power they made a proslavery constitution,[1] and
instead of submitting to the people the question, Will you, or will you
not, have this constitution? they submitted the question, Will you have
this constitution with or without slavery? On this the free settlers
would not vote, and so it was adopted with slavery. But when the
antislavery legislature met soon after, they ordered the question, Will
you, or will you not, have this constitution? to be submitted to the
people. Then the free settlers voted, and it was rejected by a great
majority. Buchanan, however, paid no attention to the action of the free
settlers, but sent the Lecompton constitution to Congress and urged it
to admit Kansas as a slave state. But Senator Douglas of Illinois came
forward and opposed this, because to force a slave constitution on the
people of Kansas, after they had voted against it, was contrary to the
doctrine of "popular sovereignty." He, with the aid of other Northern
Democrats, defeated the attempt, and Kansas remained a territory
till 1861.
[Footnote 1: The convention met at the town of Lecompton; in consequence
of which the constitution is known as the "Lecompton constitution."]
%398. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates.%--The term of Douglas as senator
from Illinois was to expire on March 4, 1859. The legislature whose duty
it would be to elect his successor was itself to be elected in 1858. The
Democrats, therefore, announced that if they secured a majority of the
legislators, they would reelect Douglas. The Republicans declared that
if they secured a majority, they would elect Abraham Lincoln United
States senator. The real question of the campaign thus became, Will the
people of Illinois have Stephen A. Douglas or Abraham Lincoln for
senator?[1]
[Footnote 1: The Republican state convention at Springfield, June 16,
1858, "resolved, that Abraham Lincoln is the first and only choice of
the Republicans of Illinois for the United States Senate as the
successor of Stephen A. Douglas."]
The speech making opened in June, 1858, when Lincoln addressed the
convention that nominated him at Springfield. A month later Douglas
replied in a speech at Chicago. Lincoln, who was present, answered
Douglas the next evening. A few days later, Douglas, who had taken the
stump, replied to Lincoln at Bloomington, and the next day was again
answered by Lincoln at Springfield. The deep interest aroused by this
running debate led the Republican managers to insist that Lincoln should
challenge Douglas to a series of joint debates in public. The challenge
was sent and accepted, and debates were arranged for at seven towns[1]
named by Douglas. The questions discussed were popular sovereignty, the
Dred Scott decision, the extension of slavery to the territories; and
the discussion of them attracted the attention of the whole country.
Lincoln was defeated in the senatorial election; but his great speeches
won for him a national reputation.[2]
[Footnote 1: One in each Congressional district except those containing
Chicago and Springfield, where both Lincoln and Douglas had already
spoken. For a short account of their debates see the _Century Magazine_
for July, 1887, p. 386.]
[Footnote 2: Rhodes's _History of the United States_, Vol. II., pp.
308-339. Nicolay and Hay's _Life of Lincoln_, Vol. II., Chaps. 10-16.
John T. Morse's _Life of Lincoln_, Vol. I., Chap. 6.]
%399. John Brown's Raid into Virginia%.--As slavery had become the
great political issue of the day, it is not surprising that it excited a
lifelong and bitter enemy of slavery to do a foolish act. John Brown was
a man of intense convictions and a deep-seated hatred of slavery. When
the border ruffianism broke out in Kansas in 1855, he went there with
arms and money, and soon became so prominent that he was outlawed and a
price set on his head. In 1858 he left Kansas, and in July, 1859,
settled near Harpers Ferry, Va. (p. 360). His purpose was to stir up a
slave insurrection in Virginia, and so secure the liberation of the
negroes. With this in view, one Sunday night in October, 1859, he with
less than twenty followers seized the United States armory at Harpers
Perry and freed as many slaves and arrested as many whites as possible.
But no insurrection or uprising of slaves followed, and before he could
escape to the mountains he was surrounded and captured by Robert E. Lee,
then a colonel in the army of the United States. Brown was tried on the
charges of murder and of treason against the state of Virginia, was
found guilty, and in December, 1859, was hanged.
[Illustration: Harpers Ferry]
%400. Split in the Democratic Party.%--Thus it was that one event
after another prolonged the struggle with slavery till 1860, when the
people were once more to elect a President.
The Democratic nominating convention assembled at Charleston, S.C., in
April, and at once went to pieces. A strong majority made up of Northern
delegates insisted that the party should declare--"That all questions in
regard to the rights of property in states or territories arising under
the Constitution of the United States are judicial in their character,
and the Democratic party is pledged to abide by and faithfully carry out
such determination of these questions as has been or may be made by the
Supreme Court of the United States."
This meant to carry out the doctrine laid down in the Dred Scott
decision, and was in conflict with the "popular sovereignty" doctrine of
Douglas, which was that right of the people to make a slave territory or
a free territory is perfect and complete. The minority, composed of the
extreme Southern men, rejected the former plan and insisted
1. "That the Democracy of the United States hold these cardinal
principles on the subject of slavery in the territories: First, that
Congress has no power to abolish slavery in the territories. Second,
that the territorial legislature has no power to abolish slavery in any
territory, nor to prohibit the introduction of slaves therein, nor any
power to exclude slavery therefrom, nor any right to destroy or impair
the right of property in slaves by any legislation whatever."
2. That the Federal government must protect slavery "on the high seas,
in the territories, and wherever else its constitutional
authority extends."
Both majority and minority agreed in asserting
1. That the Personal Liberty laws of the free states "are hostile in
their character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in
their effect."
2. That Cuba ought to be acquired by the United States.
3. That a railroad ought to be built to the Pacific.
Their agreement was a minor matter. Their disagreement was so serious
that when the minority could not have its way, it left the convention,
met in another hall, and adopted its resolutions.
The majority of the convention then adjourned to meet at Baltimore, June
18. 1860. As it was then apparent that Douglas would be nominated,
another split occurred, and the few Southern men attending, together
with some Northern delegates, withdrew. Those who remained nominated
Stephen A. Douglas and Herschel V. Johnson.
The second group of seceders met in Baltimore, adopted the platform of
the first group of seceders from the Charleston convention, and
nominated John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, and Joseph Lane, of Oregon.
[Illustration: A Lincoln]
%401. The Constitutional Union Party.%--Meanwhile (May 9) another
party, calling itself the National Constitutional Union party, met at
Baltimore. These men were the remnants of the old Whig and American or
Know-nothing parties. They nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, and Edward
Everett, of Massachusetts, and declared for "the Constitution of the
country, the union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws."
%402. Election of Lincoln.%--The Republican party met in convention
at Chicago on May 16, and nominated Abraham Lincoln, and Hannibal Hamlin
of Maine. It
1. Repudiated the principles of the Dred Scott decision.
2. Demanded the admission of Kansas as a free state.
3. Denied all sympathy with any kind of interference with slavery in the
states.
4. Insisted that the territories must be kept free.
5. Called for a railroad to the Pacific, and a homestead law.
The election took place in November, 1860. Of 303 electoral votes cast,
Lincoln received 180; Breckinridge, 72; Bell, 39; and Douglas, 12.
SUMMARY
1. The Compromise of 1850 did not settle the question of slavery in the
territories, and an attempt to organize Kansas and Nebraska brought
it up again.
2. In the organization of these territories a new political doctrine,
"popular sovereignty," was announced.
3. This was applied in Kansas, and the struggle for Kansas began. The
first territorial government was proslavery. The antislavery men then
made a constitution (Topeka) and formed a free state government.
Thereupon the proslavery men formed a constitution (Lecompton) for a
slave state. This was submitted to Congress and rejected, and Kansas
remained a territory till 1861.
4. In the course of the struggle for free soil in Kansas the Whig party
went to pieces, the Democratic was split into two wings, and the
Know-nothing or Native American party and the Republican party arose.
5. The Republican party was defeated in 1856, but the Dred Scott
decision in 1857 and the continued struggle in Kansas forced the
question of slavery to the front, and in 1860 Lincoln was elected.
[Illustration: ]